Into the Wardrobe

I realize that this is a thread meant for homework leads, so it may eventually be placed elsewhere. (Sorry, Sven!)

Alright, this has been driving me batty. I've previously learned in my Inklings class this past semester that Lewis and Tolkien shared at least five "influential texts" (as I remember) which eventually helped bring them together as friends. The professor used a model so that we can remember more easily, but, being the klutz that I am, have forgotten already a bit of it.

There's an Old Norse influence, an Old English, a Middle English, a Victorian work, and a 19th century work. Old Norse would be Beowulf, of course--that I remember. The Victorian work can either be Pilgrim's Progress or Grimm's Tales, and the the 19th century work is the Kalevala. However, it's the Old and Middle English works that I've forgotten.

I want to say that the Middle English is Spenser's "Faerie Queene", but I'm not sure that they both enjoyed that piece (at the least Tolkien), and the Old English being Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" or Dante's "Paradise Lost". I'd rather not have left the Inklings class already forgetting the major influences of both Tolkien and Lewis, so if anyone knows these two for sure, then I'd be most grateful. Thanks!

Well, Chaucer is Middle English and Spenser is... what do you call it? Elizabethan English? By this time it's clearly recognizable as English, which isn't always the case with Middle English (particularly audially).

Beowulf is Old English, not Old Norse (although it's set in southern Sweden, it's written in Anglo-Saxon). So I'd say the Old English is Beowulf and the Middle English is Chaucer. The Old Norse stuff is probably something from the Edda - The Voluspá (The Prophecy of the Vala), perhaps? It's the most archetypical of the Edda poem, telling of the creation and end of the world.

I was wondering about the Edda, and I wasn't to sure if it was something that only Tolkien appreciated (and he may have indeed had more of a liking to it than Lewis, seeing how it greatly influenced his fashioning of Middle-Earth).

Beowulf and Chaucer both seem the fit in your suggestions--I just now realized that Beowulf wasn't in Norse, but Old English (eegads, how much I forget when school's out!).

However, where did Faerie Queene fit in? I know both made plenty of references to it, so it had to fit somewhere. Perhaps Tolkien wasn't kidding when he said he disliked it?

Thanks, Theo! I'll try to remember where they all fit from now on.